Showing 1397 results

Zimbabwean politician and statesman who founded the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in July 1963. This was a militant, nationalist organisation that opposed the government of Rhodesia.

He worked as a United Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (UCCZ) minister.

He spent 10 years in prison after the government banned ZANU. A rift along tribal lines split ZANU in 1975, and he lost the 1980 elections to Robert Mugabe.

Mary Skinner became Pepys' mistress after the death of his wife and remained with him until the end of his life, accepted by his friends and his family as his partner.

Economist and parliamentary candidate for South Africa's National Party, tipped as a future Minister of Finance.

He was murdered, along with his wife Jean-Cora, on 22 November 1977. No arrests have ever been made, and there was little evidence in the case, but the murders are widely suspected to have been politically motivated. Cabinet Minister Pik Botha described it as "one of the most haunting criminal mysteries in our country", and the police investigation remained open as of November 2012.

Rhodesian and Zimbabwean politician, farmer, and former fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979.

He led the predominantly white-minority government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965 after rejecting British demands for a transition to majority rule.

His premiership was marked by international non-recognition, United Nations sanctions, and the Rhodesian Bush War.

An undergraduate at St John’s College, Cambridge, who matriculated in 1817. Smith was invited by the Master of Magdalane College to transcribe Samuel Pepys's diary in readiness for publication - a task which he commenced in 1819 and completed in 1822. A clergyman by profession, Smith became Rector of Baldock in 1832 and continued there until his death in 1870.

In the College Magazine
Photograph - a much later photograph (full length and bearded) as frontispiece - this photograph was presented to the College, but is now lost, College Magazine, No. 52 (1926) pp. 65-66

Latham, R. C. Pepys and His Editors (Occasional Paper No. 6, 1992) p. 2.

An English mezzotint engraver and print seller. Closely associated with the portrait painter Godfrey Kneller, Smith was one of leading exponents of the mezzotint medium during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was regarded among first English-born artists to receive international recognition, alongside the younger painter William Hogarth.

Master of Magdalene, 1626-1642

Henry Smyth was a sizar at Trinity College, Cambridge.
BA in 1594 and DD in 1612.
He was chaplain to the Earl of Suffolk [Visitor] and parish priest in Hildersham.

He was Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge from 1626 until his death in 1642.
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1626 until 1627.
Prebendary of Lincoln from 1611 until 1629.

“Competent and diligent, if a little proud and abrasive, he was otherwise undistinguished and played virtually no part in the intrigues and arguments that dominated university politics on the eve of Civil War”. [History of Magdalene College, 1428-1988, By Cunich et al]

Author, journalist and literary hostess.

Renowned for his amorous escapades and as the founder in 1819 of the ‘four-in-hand club’ and leader of the Badminton and Windsor hunts.

Dr Howard Somervell was a member of the 1922 and 1924 British Mount Everest Expeditions.

Howard Somervell was born on 16 April 1890, the eldest of three children and elder son of William Henry Somervell, of Brantfield, Kendal, and his wife, Florence Howard. His father worked for Somervell Brothers of Kendal, later more widely known as K Shoes. He was educated at Rugby School (1904–9) but was unhappy there. When he was eighteen he became a member of the Keswick-based Fell and Rock Climbing Club and thus started a lifetime's devotion to the mountains of the English Lake District.

Somervell went to Caius College, Cambridge, where he obtained first classes in both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos (1911 and 1913). He then served with the British Expeditionary Force in France (1915–18) as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was mentioned in dispatches. After the war he graduated from London's University College Hospital (MB, BCh, 1921) and became FRCS in 1920.

Somervell's Everest ambitions were stimulated in 1921 during mountaineering trips in Britain and Europe. He realised that the Himalayan region called for constant movement above 20,000 ft. Everest was to be his physical test in 1922 and 1924, but his colleagues commented too on his mental endurance.

Somervell wrote of Mallory that his outlook on life was "lofty and choice, human and loving and in a measure divine".

In 1924 Somervell was in danger of choking to death, E. F. Norton wrote: 'Somervell very nearly choked, and was handicapped for three days. Only saved by coughing up the obstructing matter with a lot of blood. That he achieved what he did in this condition was a remarkable performance'.

After the 1922 Everest expedition he set out to see India. He saw that it was ill-equipped medically and poorly provided for in the skills which he possessed. When he visited the main hospital of the south Travancore medical mission and its group of outstations centred on Neyyoor, he found only one qualified surgeon, Stephen Pugh, struggling with a queue of waiting patients which would take ten days to reduce. Somervell offered to perform those overdue operations. He returned to London and told his friends in London hospitals that he had decided to devote his life to India after another attempt on Everest. He joined the 1924 expedition on which Mallory and Irvine died.

From 1924 to 1949 Somervell worked for the south Travancore medical mission which, with its branch hospitals, could claim to be the largest of its kind in the world. He attracted young surgeons to work with him, especially in the surgery of the stomach. Somervell also pioneered the modern treatment of leprosy believing that it could be cured. His home for leprosy patients had four big dormitories for eighty patients, and there was also a leprosy settlement for permanent residents. By 1936 several scores of patients had been sent home cured and free from all symptoms of the disease.

In 1938 he was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal, and was appointed OBE in 1953.

He accepted the post of associate professor of surgery at the Vellore Christian Medical College (1949–61), then at a crucial stage of its development as a teaching hospital. It was a fitting climax to his forty years' service in India.

He died on 23 January 1975. Sir Francis Younghusband described him as 'a man of science, a man of art, a man of warm humanity and of strong religious feeling'.

An English painter and teacher of art, regarded as one of the foremost British portrait painters of his day. Born in Hammersmith, Spear attended the local art school before going on to the Royal College of Art in 1930. He began his teaching career at Croydon School of Art, later teaching at the Royal College of Art from 1948 to 1975, where his students included Sandra Blow

Politician, agriculturist and sportsman.

Lincolnshire benefactor
In 1584 John Spendluffe gave the College two properties, then valued at £40 per annum, to fund a fellowship and two scholarships, all of five years duration. The properties lay to the south of Alford and the scholarships were tied to Alford School.

Grandson of Nicholas Spierinck (c. 1470 - 1546) from the Netherlands. He left prior to 1500 and went first to Lille in France before arriving in Cambridge c. 1501. He was a book binder / stationer and also a beer brewer. He left the Cross Keys Inn to his grandson Nicholas in his will.

In 1534 Henry VIII granted the University the right to nominate three printers and sellers of books to print books approved by the Chancellor and to sell them in the University and elsewhere. Nicholas, along with Garrett Godfrey and Segar Nicholson, became one of the first three printers of what later became the Cambridge University Press.

Benedict Spinola was a Genoese money lender. He saw the potential of the land in London that had been granted by Lord Audley to the College on its foundation.
Due to an Act of 1571 he could not lease the land directly from the College so the College granted the freehold of the land (seven acres of land in the Parish of St Botolph without Aldgate) to Queen Elizabeth I in return for a perpetual rent chatge of £15 a year (13 Dec 1574). The grant was to be invalid if the Queen did not convey the land to Spinola by 1 April 1575. However, the Queen who was repeatedly in debt to Spinola, took only 6 weeks to complete the transfer.

Why did the College give away its most valuable asset to Spinola? Mainly due to pressure from Lord Burghley.

The immediate effect was to see the College's income rise from £6 per annum to £15. But Spinola quickly divided the property into different plots and began building on them. He then sold his interest in the estate to the Earl of Oxford. By the early 17th century the estate was worth £10,000 with a yearly income of £800.

When Barnaby Goche (lawyer) became Master of the College he set about legal proceedings to challenge the legal validity of the transfer to the Earl of Oxford.
In 1615 the Chief Justice found for the College but the Earl of Oxford appealed and the case went to Chancery where they found against the College.
Goche and Smith were outraged and protested that they had aleady secured judgement. They only succeeded in securing a spell in the Fleet Prison.

The College tried to over turn the ruling in 1621 and during Charles II's reign. Between 1805 and 1807 the College spent more than £100 trying to secure legal opinion for their case and A.C. Benson tried again in 1914 but all to no avail.

[A History of Magdalene College, 1428-1988, Cunich et al]

Spooner's grandfather, William, was Archdeacon of Coventry from 1821 to 1851; and his father, also William Spooner, a county court judge for North Staffordshire.

Spooner was educated at Oswestry School and Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1868.
He was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford 1868–1876.
He was ordained deacon in 1870; and priest in 1871.
He was domestic chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1870 to 1875.

In 1875 year he married Catherine, the second daughter of Harvey Goodwin, the Bishop of Carlisle and became vicar of Boughton under Blean.
In 1887 he became the incumbent at Holy Trinity, Maidstone; and in 1893 rector of Saltwood.
He became a canon residentiary of Canterbury Cathedral in 1900.
He was Archdeacon of Maidstone from 1900 until 1921.

He died on 1 April 1929.

An archaeologist, geologist and Royal Air Force (RAF) veteran who pioneered the use of aerial photography as a method of archaeological research in Britain and Ireland. He was Professor of Aerial Photographic Studies at the University of Cambridge from 1973 to 1980.